Thursday 27 October 2011

Lots More Old Pictur'd Metal Discs Found in Another Pot!

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My, my, we live in really exciting times for British archaeology. Whoopppee, eh? "Inquest into largest coin hoard from Shropshire" - largest until the next one is hoiked out from "in the ploughsoil - honest". Frankly this pot does not look much as if it has been dragged around a field on the tip of a ploughshare to me. So, when are we going to see the full publication of this early fourth century "Near Shrewsbury" hoard, allowing all those home-based numismatists over the big ocean to do their all-important die-study analyses using the information presented as a result of England's "enlightened" "Treasure" process? When will we see the full publication of the "recent work by the British Museum [which] has revealed important new information about the find"? When will we see what the random removal of this deposit from the surrounding archaeological context has added to the knowledge of economic and social relations in the early fourth century gained from the study of other types of evidence? How much reliable and useful archaeological information per pound can we get for the reward money?

Happy man with his pot and a heap of coiney things on a table (PAS)

This is the hoard, isn't it that reportedly was found "near" (I thought the original reports said "on") "a public bridleway on land that Mr Davies did not have permission to detect on"? If so, are there going to be any (financial) consequences of such trespassing? It is otherwise called "nighthawking", isn't it, though perhaps the finder will just get a pat on the head from the fluffy-bunny pro-collecting archaeologists, because it's not really NIGHTawking if you are out on a public path in broad daylihght? ("Go on, off you run, you young scamp, but don't do it again!"). I mean, nothing happened, we got the coins, didn't we? That's what matters, isn't it? Lots and lots of round things with pictures and writing on them to put in a case so people can gawp at them with happy smiles on their faces. Never mind all this "preserving/sustainable management of the archaeological record" malarky, just look at all the "heritage" we can get hoiked out from it now with these metal detectors in the hands of thousands of unsupervised "heritage heroes" hoovering it all out for us.

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